A large American construction company and an affiliate have been indicted on charges of participating in a vast criminal conspiracy to cheat the US government out of tens of millions of dollars for Egyptian water projects undertaken as part of the 1978 Camp David Middle East peace accords, according to a report by the International Herald Tribune.
Citing the indictment, filed in US District Court in Birmingham, Alabama, the paper said that the accused included Bill Harbert International, which is based there, and a foreign affiliate, Bilhar International Establishment, of participating in the scheme with several other companies.
Also charged were the former president of Bilhar, Elmore Roy Anderson, and Peter Schmidt, a former official with Philipp Holzmann AG of Frankfurt.
According to the indictment, the conspiracy lasted more than eight years and involved the rigging of contract bids submitted in the late 1980s and early 1990s to the Agency for International Development, which was financing Egyptian water projects that resulted from the 1978 Middle East peace accords.
Contracts were supposed to be awarded through competitive bidding, but the companies subverted the process through bribes and kickbacks, fraudulent billings to the government and the laundering of cash through Swiss bank accounts, court records show.
The conspirators included at least six international construction companies. The companies were either American or US subsidiaries of European concerns.
According to enr.com in May, the US Army Corps of Engineers had voided a $65 million contract with Harbert International after learning that the company bid the job while ineligible for government procurement. The contractor had been suspended from federal work while the US Justice Dept. investigated the firm’s alleged role in a bid-rigging deal on the federally funded sewer project in Egypt.
The Savannah District of the Corps on March 6 awarded the Birmingham, Alabama-based firm a design-build contract for a barracks complex at Ft. Bragg, N.C. It was voided May 8. Harbert had to reimburse the corps $900,788 and all excess reprocurement costs. Harbert was planning to appeal, said the report - Albawaba.com
